Studies have linked porn consumption to sexual aggression, problems with intimate relationships and losing one’s virginity at an earlier age. But the influence of sexually explicit material on some risky behaviors may be more modest than previously thought.

In a new study published by the Journal of Sexual Medicine, four researchers argue that previous studies on the subject have been too narrowly focused when it comes to drawing a connection between X-rated materials and negative outcomes. Such research has often asked some form of the same question: whether what people see will affect what people do — and the results didn’t paint porn in a flattering light. The latest study found that the connection may be less significant than other studies have suggested, though the work still provided plenty of support for the antipornography contingent.

University of Copenhagen’s Gert Martin Hald and colleagues conducted an online survey of 4,600 young people asking about a broad range of sexual acts, from threesomes to experience with one-night stands to prostitution. They found that among the 15-to-25-year-old participants, almost 90% of males and nearly half of females reported that they had used porn some time in the previous year, the vast majority of which was online. And there is some evidence that widespread access to the Internet, with its triple-X domains, may be pushing exposure up. In 1973, for example, a study found that 84% of men and 69% of adult women had seen pornography, the majority before the age of 21. Thirty-five years later, a 2008 survey in CyberPsychology & Behavior revealed that 93% of boys and 62% of girls had encountered dirty material online before they hit age 18.

Heightened exposure, Hald found, was associated with high-risk sexual practices like accepting some kind of payment for sex. He and his team also tied porn usage to “adventurous” behaviors, like having “real-life sex” with someone they met online, which some experts believe may lead to increased rates of sexually transmitted diseases.

But the researchers emphasize that the link between porn and risky business isn’t absolute or clear-cut. For example, there may be other contributors to the promiscuous behavior, like a tendency toward thrill seeking (which, in turn, could make young people more likely to experiment with porn). Pornography is “just one factor among many that may influence the sexual behaviors of young people,” they concluded, while cautioning that the findings “should not be interpreted as an indication that the influence … is negligible, nonexistent, or unimportant.”

The results should inform educators and policymakers who may turn too quickly to the ubiquity of sexually explicit material as the primary culprit for society’s attitudes toward sex. Expanding the list of potential contributors could lead to more effective ways of curbing perilous behavior, like addressing the thrill seeking that turns sexual encounters solely into opportunities for attaining physical pleasure or engaging in “sexual exploration.” A 2008 study, for example, showed that self-control and planning ahead helped gay men to avoid careless behavior that could put their health at risk.

There is also the fact that public tolerance of sexually explicit material is increasing. A 2011 Gallup poll found a growing generational divide when it came to pornography: only 19% of people 55 and older said it was morally acceptable, compared with more than 40% of people ages 18 to 34. If opposing porn continues to lose popular support among young people, that’s one more reason to explore other avenues for promoting safe sexual practices.

Liza Featherstone: "According to research by the late Alvin Cooper of the Silicon Valley Psychotherapy Center, individuals occupied with any sort of online sexual movement for 60 minutes a week said it had small affect on their lives; individuals utilizing it for 11 or more hours a week said it influenced both their mental self view and their affections about their accomplices. Anyplace between one and ten hours a week is questionable terrain. It might just be a route to discharge stretch, yet as Cooper has sharp out, "the Internet is ... an exceptionally compelling compel that individuals can rapidly advance an issue with, for example split cocaine."

CALGARY, March 12, 2002 (LSN.ca) - A new study has found that viewing pornography is harmful to the viewer and society. In a meta-analysis (a statistical integration of all existing scientific data), researchers have found that using pornographic materials leads to several behavioral, psychological and social problems.

One of the most common psychological problems is a deviant attitude towards intimate relationships such as perceptions of sexual dominance, submissiveness, sex role stereotyping or viewing persons as sexual objects. Behavioral problems include fetishes and excessive or ritualistic masturbation. Sexual aggressiveness, sexually hostile and violent behaviours are social problems as well as individual problems that are linked to pornography.

“Our findings are very alarming”, said Dr. Claudio Violato one of the co-authors of the study. Dr. Violato, Director of Research at the National Foundation for Family Research and Education (NFFRE) and a professor at the University of Calgary, said “This is a very serious social problem since pornography is so widespread nowadays and easily accessible on the internet, television, videos and print materials”.

Studies have shown that almost all men and most women have been exposed to pornography. An increasing number of children are also being exposed to explicitly sexual materials through mass media. The rise in sexual crimes, sexual dysfunction and family breakdown may be linked to the increased availability and use of pornography. The rape myth (belief that women cause and enjoy rape, and that rapists are normal) is very widespread in habitual male users of pornography according to the study.

“There has been some debate among researchers about the degree of negative consequences of habitual use of pornography, but we feel confident in our findings that pornography is harmful”, Violato noted. “Our study involved more than 12,000 participants and very rigorous analyses. I can think of no beneficial effects of pornography whatsoever. As a society we need to move towards eradicating it”.

The authors of the study concluded that exposure to pornography puts viewers at increased risk for developing sexually deviant tendencies, committing sexual offences, experiencing difficulties in intimate relationships, and accepting of the rape myth. Dr. Elizabeth Oddone-Paolucci and Dr. Mark Genuis, researchers at the National Foundation for Family Research and Education, are co-authors of the study that was published in the scientific journal Mind, Medicine and Adolescence.

Below is from the anti-pornography feminist site Pornography And The First Amendment. Twiss Butler of The Washington NOW said to me that women who support pornography and call themselves "feminists" are supporting sexism and woman-hating and are *NOT* feminists,and she's totally right they are traders and hypocrites!

Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press Pornography and the First Amendment

Twiss Butler from her chapter "Why The First Amendment Is Being Used to Protect Violence Against Women," in The Price We Pay, The Case Against Racist Speech, Hate Propaganda, and Pornography, Laura Lederer and Richard Delgado, eds. (NY: Hill & Wang, 1995) "Twiss Butler argues that men's control of institutions of communication and education allows them to support speech that harms women and to suppress speech against that harm. She observes that the publishing industry funds legal, journalistic, and nonprofit organizations endorsing a First Amendment absolutist position. She contends that the industry's defense of pornography as protected speech serves the double purpose of dignifying misogyny and establishing the First Amendment as the publisher's product liability shield." (p. 160) "When feminists criticize pornography as graphic misogyny, they are attacking not only the system of sexism itself, with its economic and social pay-offs for men, not only Playboy's advertising rates, but also publishers' broad First Amendment shield against liability for any harm caused by the products that they produce and sell. "The publishing industry and the men in it therefore have a conflict of interest in reporting a critique of pornography as inimical to women's civil rights (unsecured as those rights are by the Constitution). We need to consider how that conflict of interest distorts the information we receive through journalistic coverage of public debate and action on this issue. "Publishers protect their liability shield either by silencing feminists while granting speech to those who vilify them, or by misrepresenting the feminist critique of pornography. Women are given credibility and access to speech to the extent that they say what men want them to say. Stray from the script and you will be attacked, misquoted, or simply go unheard. As power brokers in a large industry profiting from sexism, publishers disguise this censorship as selfless concern for the First Amendment and freedom of speech. (p. 163) ... "In the news business as elsewhere, men have long relied on the weapon of pornography to avoid having to compete on their own merits. The role pornography plays in keeping women journalists at a disadvantage is evident in the experience of Lynn carrier, an editorial writer for the San Diego Tribune who sued the paper in 1990 for sex discrimination and harassment. Men coworkers attempted to intimidate and segregate Carrier by displaying pornography in the office, using sexual insults when talking with her, and asking her to run out and buy a copy of Playboy for her supervisor--who also wondered aloud what she would charge Playboy for posing nude for photographs. Carrier won her civil suit (refusing, incidentally, to accept a secret settlement), but the outcome was typical--she no longer works at the Tribune, but is employed instead as a smaller paper in the area. (p. 164) ... "To protect pornography, women's speech must be carefully controlled. When Linda Lovelace said she loved starring in pornographic films, she was treated as credible; when Linda Marchiano said that she had been beaten, raped, and coerced into making those films, her credibility was questioned. No risk is overlooked. At a National Press Club speech by Christie Hefner in 1986, I addressed her 'as a pornographer' in a written question about her lawsuit to censor testimony from a federal hearing that referred to Playboy as pornography; when my question was read aloud by the club's president, these three words were deleted." (pp. 166-167) [This chapter by Twiss Butler alone is worth the purchase of The Price We Pay, The Case Against Racist Speech, Hate Propaganda, and Pornography. The entire book is excellent and highly recommended.]

Pornography is extremely sexist and woman-hating and it teaches and normalizes sick distortions of women,men and sexuality,and it sexualizes male supremacy,sexist gender inequality,male dominance,women's subordination and submission to men,,male supremacy objectification and dehumanization of women as only sex objects to be used,ejac*lated all over,and disgarded, for men,often calls women woman-hating names like s***s,b******,and w***** and even male violence! Yes America is really "growing up"! No I'm afraid it's that America is now sickier and more pornography influenced than ever before! And sadly and very disturbingly many young people including many women are now so influenced and desensitized because pornography has been so unjustly and wrongly made acceptable and mainstreamed especialy because of the pornography on the internet!

And because it sexualizes and normalizes all of these sick things and sexist injustices, and has been wrongly mainstreamed and made acceptable in a sexist sick woman-hating male dominated society,that created and normalized it in the first place,more women are sadly disturbingly being influenced to think this is what normal hetrosexuality is,and it teaches men that this is what women want and like, and that they want to be treated by them this way! Attitudes like yours really make any hope for change seem hopless!

Many men who used to use pornography when they were younger who are now anti-pornography anti-sexist anti-male violence educators include, former all star high school football player Jackson Katz who wrote the great important book,The Macho Paradox How Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help and he writes about how pornography sexualizes men's power,woman hatred,sexual objectification and dehumanization and subordination of women,and this is all connected to male violence,and gender inequality,and how the pornography industry has sold this woman-hatred and men's power as normal and liberating to the public. Therapist Russ Funk who is a anti-racist,anti-sexist,anti-male violence educator has written books and articles on this as well and he had a chapter ,What Pornography Says About Me(n) in the book,Not For Sale:Feminists Resisting Prostitution & Pornography in which he said that when he used pornography he saw all women as just f***able even women he saw in classes,business coleagues and women on the street .He said being commited to justice and using pornography is inherently contradictory,because one can not look at others as fully equal,empowered,dynamic human beings if one is also looking at them through the pornographic gaze. He also did a presentation in 2006 at The Center For Women Children and Families,Pornography What's The Harm? On his site it describes 3 workshops he presents to people on the harms of pornography.He also wrote a book in 1993,Stopping Rape:A Challenge For Men and he includes pornography as one of the causes of rape culture.

The important organization,Men Can Stop Rape also discusses and educates on how men's sexuality is socialized by pornography.

And Robert Jensen has written great articles and his important book,Getting Off Pornography And The End Of Masculinity.And Dr.Michael Flood's recent report is great too.John Stoltenberg's excellent 1989 book,Refusing To Be A Man Essays On Sex and Justice that consists of brilliant important speaches he made from the late 70's -the late 80's also discusses how pornography eroticizes and sexualizes male supremacy, sexism,woman hatred,violence,male dominance and female submission and subordination of women,and makes it feel and seem like sex to people and even makes sexism necessary for some people to have sexual feelings and arousal,keeps it this way, makes it the reality that people believe is true, and keeps people from knowing any other possibility.He co-founded Men Against Pornography In New York.

Paul Kivel who is the founder of The Oakland Men's Project in California who has been a long time anti-sexist,anti-racist,anti-male violence educator,also wrote about how harmful and sexist pornography is in his great important 1999 book,Boys Will Be Men Raising Our Sons For COURAGE,CARING,and COMMUNITY. He writes that it is not surprising that an industry worth billions of dollars a year,which may be bigger than the record and movie industries combined,has developed many ways to justify it's existence and insinuate itself into mainstream male culture. Paul then says that there are several books that describe in detail the harm pornography does to men as well as to women.He says these books listed in the bibliography,also contain descriptions of the pornography industry's efforts to suppress and disrupt people organizing against it.The books he lists are,Men Confront Pornography edited by Michael S.Kimmel,Making Violence Sexy:Feminist Views On Pornography by Dianna E.H.Russell,and Pornography:The Production and Consumption Of Inequality by Gail Dines et.al. Paul also says in this book that talking to another adult can also help you decide if this is a situation in which you want to forbid the presence of porn in your house or if you just want to make it clear to your son how you fell about pornography but will let him decide what to do with the magazines or videos he has.He says in either case,it's important to find out your son's thoughts about pornography .He then says he may no little about the industry,it's exploitation in the production of pornography,or the effects on women,men,and their relationships when men use it.He says it might be useful,if you have the stomach for it,to look through some of the material with him and talk about what you see.

Brooklyn College psychology professor Dr.Robert Brannon was a co-chair with Phylis B.Frank for 20 years from 1990 of The New York NOW's Task Force on the harms of pornography,trafficking, and prostitution and he is co-founder of NOMAS National Organization For Men Against Sexism and he;s the organization's group leader of their Task Force on prostitution and pornography.THere islso a n excellent recent report by pro-feminist Australian gender studies and sociology professor Dr.Michael Flood,The Harms Of Pornography Exposure Among Children And Young People and he also includes a lot of great research studies about the effects on adult users.He explains that Adults also show an increase in behavioral agression following exposure to pornography including non-violent or violent depictions of sexual activity (but not nudity) with stronger effects for violent pornography.He has a lot of researchers as references.

Dr.Flood also then explains that in studies of pornography use in everyday life,men who are high frequency users of pornography and men who use 'hardcore',violent, or rape pornography are more likely than others to report that they would rape or sexually harass a woman if they knew they could get away with it.And they are more likely to actually perpetrate sexual coercion and agression.His reference for this is studies by psychologist Neil Malamuth et al 2000.Dr.Flood also says that perhaps the most troubling impact of pornography on children and young people is it's influence on sexual violence. And he then says that a wide range of studies of the effects of pornography have been conducted among young people age 18-25,as well as older polualtions.

Psychiatrist Park Elliott Dietz On Porn Harms In 1994 I wrote to psychiatrist Dr.Linnea Smith about my experience and the harms of pornography. She wrote me back a very nice note and thanked me for my important efforts to educate people on the harms of porn. She said it's especially difficult because the public is desensitzed and the media is reluctant to crititicize other media especially sexually explicit media. She sent me two huge folders full of important information on the harms including Playboy cartoons of women being sexually harassed in the workplace by their male bosses! One of the many things she sent me was a transcribed lecture by psychiatrist and law professor Dr.Park Elliott Dietz, and this lecture was given before the National Conference of State Legislators on August 5 1986 and was videotaped by C-Span. Dr. Dietz served as a commissioner on the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography. He was professor of law,professor of Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry,and Medical Director of The Institute of Law,Psychiatry and Medical Director of The Institute of Law,Psychiatry and Public Policy at The University of Virginia School of Law and School of Medicine. He gave many examples of women and children's testimonies who were sexually abused by men who used pornography,and also women who were sexually harassed on the job with pornographic pictures hung up on the walls and shown to them. He said he only used a small sample of the 1000's of women and children who testified. He says many times that pornography is a health problem and human rights issue and he said one of the reasons is because so much of it teaches false,misleading,and even dangerous information about human sexuality. This is what he said a person would learn about sexuality from pornography, "A person who learned about human sexuality in the "adults only" pornography outlets of America would be a person,who had never conceived of a man and woman marrying or even falling in love before having intercourse,who had never conceived of two people making love in privacy without guilt or fear of discovery,who had never conceived of tender foreplay,who had never conceived of vaginal intercourse with ejaculation during intromission,and who had never conceived of procreation as a purpose of sexual union., Instead,such a person would be one who had learned that sex at home meant sex with one's children,stepchildren,parents,stepparents,siblings,cousins,nephews,nieces,aunts,uncles,and pets,and with neighbors,milkmen,plumbers,salesmen,burglars,and peepers,who had learned that people take off their clothes and have sex within the first 5 minutes of meeting one another,who had learned to misjudge the percentage of women who prepare for sex by shaving their p*bic hair,having their bre*sts,buttocks or legs tattooed,having their nipples or l*bia pierced,or donning leather,latex,rubber,or childlike costumes,who had learned to misjudge the proportion of men who prepare for sex by having their genitals or nipples pierced,wearing women's clothing,or growing bre*sts. Who had learned that about 1 out of 5 sexual encounters involves spankning,whipping,fighting,wrestling,tying,chaining,gagging,or torture,who had learned that more than 1 in 10 sexaul acts involves a party of more than 2,who had learned that the purpose of ejaculation is that of soiling the mouths,faces,bre*sts,abdomens,backs,and food at which it's always aimed,who had learned that body cavities were designed for the insertion of foreign objects,who had learned that the an*s was a genital to be licked and penetrated,who had learned that urine and excrement are erotic materials,who had learned that the instruments of sex chemicals,handcuffs,gags,hoods,restraints,harnesses,police badges,knives,guns,whips,paddles,toilets,diapers,enema bags,inflatable rubber women,and disembodied v*ginas,breasts,and p*nises,who had learned that except with the children,where secrecy was required,photographers and cameras were supposed to be present to capture the action so that it could be spread abroad. If these were the only adverse consequences of pornography,the most straightforward remedy would be to provide factually accurate information on human sexuality to people before they are exposed to pornography,if only we could agree on what that information is,on who should provide it to the many children whose parents are incapable of doing so,and on effective and acceptable means by which to ensure that exposure not precede education. In the absense of such a remedy,the probable consequences in this area alone are sufficient to support recommendations that would reduce the dissemination of that pornography which teaches false,misleading or dangerous information about human sexuality. And these are not the only adverse consequences of pornography. He then says before he gives more examples and research,that pornography is a health problem and human rights issue because it increases the probability that members of the exposed population will acquire attitudes that are detrimental to the physical and mental health of both those exposed and those around them,pornography is a health problem and human rights issue because it is used as an instrument of sexual abuse and sexual harassment. And look where we are now!

As Smith explains " . . . No [other] reputable publication brought positive drug information within easy reach of juvenile (or adult) consumers. Since 1970, Playboy has been glamorizing intoxication as a mind-expanding, sexually-enhancing experience. It is difficult to conclude these magazines have not played a major role in popularizing 'recreational' drug consumption and the myth of its being fun, risk-free, and even sexy. What greater reinforcement for drug taking behavior than to eroticize it?"

In "Drug Coverage in Playboy Magazine," a brochure she developed for the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association), Smith compiled a plethora of cartoons that favorably paired sex with drugs and alcohol. Cartoons, articles and columns advise readers on how to use drugs for sexual enhancement. References to negative effects were usually humorously presented and so, easily dismissed.

Playboy's depiction of underage users of drugs and alcohol even included their own version of the Official Boy Scout Handbook in (Playboy, August, 1984). Their suggestions for Scout Merit Badges included "Water Safety" for the scout who ordered his Johnnie Walker whiskey straight up, and "Free-Basing" for the scout who smoked cocaine. A similar feature in 1979 stated that "Today, 'boyhood fun' means cruising and scoring; overnight adventures' involve Ripple and car stripping; and 'survival skills include cocaine testing, bust evasion and cutting into gas lines" (Playboy, December, 1979).

Once Smith contacted the NCAA about her serious concerns, media attention and public scrutiny increased. Playboy denied any wrongdoing, claiming they were only reflecting a "major cultural phenomena", but they did scale back the more obvious pro-drug and alcohol features in the magazine. damage control campaign resulted in a politically correct editorial statement on the magazine's position on drug abuse in the May 1987 issue as well as a few anti-drug articles. To counter Smith's NCAA attempts, the magazine also courted collegiate sports information offices with a mass mailing of a hastily compiled slick, glossy booklet "The Dangers of Drugs", explaining their "real" position against substance abuse. However the magazine still includes covert messages glamorizing substance abuse and pairing sexualized alcohol consumption with easier prey. According to Smith, "we succeeded in exposing yet another dimension of the destructive nature of pornography, and, at the very least, cost Playboy some time and money."

It may also cost Playboy the niche they are trying to carve out for themselves in organized sports. Playboy's strategy for commercial success has been to include respected and well- known public figures in their magazine, an old tactic for aspiring to legitimacy. That way the magazine may be looked at as more of a credible news journal than just a porno rag. Readers too, can feel better about their consumption of pornographic pictures of women when they are "wrapped" in articles about current social issues. It made business sense to Playboy to seek out an alliance with athletes who, in some countries, are accorded hero status.

So they came up with an annual pre-season award for college level athletes and coaches, the Playboy All-America Award. The nominated players and coaches receive an all-expenses paid trip to a luxury resort for a weekend party, photo session and public relations blitz.

The team selection process is unorthodox at best. It is not a panel of sports officials but rather Photography Director Gary Cole, doubling as sports editor when needed, (Playboy, March, 1996, p.117) who chooses players and coaches for the award. The prerequisite is not athletic ability but rather who agrees to be photographed for the magazine. Again, a common tactic for legitimacy. Playboy rejects players unwilling to have their pictures associated with the magazine--its content and underlying messages--and keeps making "awards" until the sufficient number of players and coaches agree to the photo sessions. The event hit some legal snafus as well. Complaints were officially lodged with the NCAA which included the presence of professional agents at the photo sessions. This charge, like the others, was also denied by the magazine in a letter to the NCAA.

Studies by Dr.John Court found that in Australia Queensland did not allow easy distribution of pornography but South Australia allowed easy and accessible pornography.He compared the rape rate of 100,000 at risk for more than a 13 year period and found Queensland had no increase in their rape rate,but South Australia's rape rate increased 6 times! In 1974 Hawai allowed easy distribution of pornography and their rape rate increased,then they restricted it and the rape rate went down,and then they allowed wide distribution again,and the rape rate went up again and then when they restricted again,the rapes decreased!

Sociologists Larry Baron and Murray Straus also did a state-state circulation rate of pornographic magazine sales and the connection to states with the highest sales of these magazines including playboy and the rape rate in those states.And in Alaska and Nevada is where the pornographic magazines sold the highest,and those 2 states also had the highest rape rates compared to any other states.They repeated this study the next year and the findings were exactly the same,even when they controlled for other causes,and it was only sexual assault that increased not other crimes.

And,

Linnea SmithBy Patricia Barrera

Linnea Smith is your average woman of the 90s. She has a satisfying family life, rewarding career in mental health and interests that include traveling with her husband, spending time with her daughters, babying her dogs and reading pornography. Yes...reading pornography--and using her professional skills and expanding international network to fight it. Like most of us, she never really thought about pornography as a critical social issue until a 1985 media conference where she learned about past and present research on pornographic materials. And what she learned shocked and angered her.

As a psychiatrist, feminist, and woman, she was well aware of the personal and societal consequences of battery, rape, and child sexual abuse. The results of the studies delivered at that fateful conference were an indictment to the connection of pornographic materials, both directly and indirectly, with these violent sex crimes. For Smith, pornography became an issue of public health and human rights that needed to be addressed.

As every critical thinker should, Smith went straight to the source to see for herself what was going on. She turned to Playboy, the nation's first pornography magazine to earn mainstream acceptance and support. By 1984 Playboy had 4.2 million subscribers, and was selling 1.9 million magazines at newsstands (Miller, 1984).

The results of her extensive investigation of the magazine (from the 1960s on) are presented in three brochures. "It's Not Child's Play" is a disturbing brochure that outlines the specific ways in which Playboy sexualizes small children and presents them as sexual targets for adult males in their magazine. The collection of cartoons and pictorials is damning, and made even more so when juxtaposed against pathetic statements made by Playboy representatives denying they ever used children in their publication. Smith very well could have called the brochure "Playboy Exposed".

Right alongside their claims that "Playboy never has, never will" publish such offensive imagery (Playboy, December, 1985), Smith placed pictures the magazine did indeed publish- of children in sexual encounters with adults and references to girl children as 'Playmate' material. In December of 1978, for example, Playboy published a picture of a five year old girl with the caption "my first topless picture," and in March of that same year published a cartoon in which Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz is pointing out the Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man to a police officer as having just raped her on the yellow brick road.

Smith did not limit her investigation to the use of children in Playboy. She found jokes about sexual harassment, abuse, manipulation, dehumanization and avoidance of intimacy by men toward their partners and callousness toward women in general, and the promotion of sexual conquest over women instead of sexual intimacy with a woman.

In another powerful and well documented brochure, "As Sex Education, Men's Magazines are Foul PLAY, BOYS!," Smith once again had Playboy do the talking for her. The brochure featured Playboy cartoons that dehumanized women like the one in which a man was shown holding a pornography magazine over his girlfriend's face and body as they are having sex (Playboy, August, 1974), and another featuring a taxidermist calling a man to come and pick up his wife, who had been stuffed (Playboy, April, 1995). Was she hunted down and killed, too?

Smith's brochures include extensive documentation and commentary by recognized scholars and researchers addressing the impact of pornography on our society. There are chilling statistics, like the finding that 100% of all high school aged males in one survey reported having read or looked at pornography, with the average age of viewing the first issue being 11 years old (Bryant, testimony to the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography Hearings, 1985).

In another study she lists, three per cent of the women in a random sample and 8.5 per cent in a survey of college undergraduate women reported being physically coerced into sex by someone inspired by pornography. Ten per cent of the nonstudent and 24 per cent of the student respondents answered yes to the question of whether they had ever been upset by someone trying to get them to do something out of a pornographic book, movie, or magazine (cited by Anderson in Lederer and Delgado, eds., 1995).

Also included is a study conducted by Mary Koss on 6,000 college students in which she found that men reporting behavior meeting legal definitions of rape were significantly more likely to be frequent readers of pornography magazines than those men who did not report engaging in such behavior (Koss and Dinero, 1989).

Smith is one of few people to expand her analysis of pornographic magazines to include the presence of drugs and alcohol, especially important today considering the almost epidemic level of drug and alcohol use by adults and teenagers in this country, Smith agrees that drugs and alcohol are contributing factors to high risk and coercive sex, and that the relationship between them within pornographic materials is an overlooked, and greatly needed, area of research.

There was a university of Pennsylvania student who was gang raped in 1990 after college men watched porn videos in their dorms.And I still have a 1985 letter written into Mademoiselle Magazine by a woman who wrote in response to Peter Nelson's His Column,Why Nice Guys Like Playboy,she wrote from Allendale New Jersey,"I just finished reading Peter Nelson's His Colum.Peter Nelson is certainly no nice guy,nor is any participant in pornography, a trade which profits from the exploitation of women.Why I must ask does a so-called "woman' magazine" feature editorials which support misogyny? Mr.Nelson's callous disregard for women is evident in his neglect to face the fact that pornography promotes rape and violence .I know,because my best friend was raped by four men who used pornography as a reference guide. There were several articles that were online from MIT's newspaper The Tech from 1983,1984 and 1985 about how women were being sexually harassed year after year in the 1980's after men watched hardcore porn videos on campus the university lecture hall and of because of the sexual harassment of women students after the showings. Rhea from the sadly former Women's Alliance Against Pornography Education Project in Cambridge,sent me a lot of research on the harms of pornography back in 1991.One of the things she sent me included information that North Carolina State Representavie Richard Wright-Democrat,while announcing enactment of anti-pornography legislation he sponsored,cited a N.C. State Police study which found:defendants in 75% of the violent sex crimes in the state"had some kind of hard-core pornographic material" in their homes or vechicles."I'm talking about S&M (sadistic & masochistic) material,bondage he said,that came from The New York Times 1/26/86 & 10/13/85;The Virginian Pilot 10/20/85 and the articles were contributed by Alexandra Basil,Ray Lynn Oliver;Barbara Sparrow. The information also included a study conducted by the Michigan State Police in which 38,000 sexual assaults from 1956 to 1979 were analyzed found that in at least 41% of those crimes,pornography was used or imitated just prior to or during the act this came from Ladies Home Journal October 1985.The information Rhea sent me also included that a study of 36 convicted sexually oriented murderers/serial killers,found the single most common trait amongst them was 81% listed their primary sexual interest as pornography,71% voyeurism.The study's objective,conducted by the FBI's behavioral science unit in Quantico,Virginia,was to develop a psychological profile on sex killers in order to track them faster.The researchers concluded,after interviews with the 36 who collectively provided information on 1,188 murders,that the killers were characteristically immeresed in fantasy,this came from NY Daily News 6/26/85 and This World 7/14/85.

Feminist psychologist Phyllis Chesler says in her book,Patriarchy:Notes Of An Expert Witness that serial killers are obessed with pornography and woman hatred and sexually use their victime both before and after killing them,and she said most wife beaters,pedaphiles,rapists and serial killers of women are addicted to pornography. Nobody would need to do studies to prove that racist and anti-semetic pornography is very harmful to Blacksand Jews and it never would have been mainstreamed and made acceptable!

Dr.Gene Abel also found that more than 50% of sex offenders usedpornography and that they were less able to control their abusive behavior than sex offenders who didn't use it. Psychiatrist Dr.William Marshall who treats rapists and child molesters,found that 86% of rapists regularly use pornography and that 57% imitate pornographic scenes in the commiting of their crimes he also found that in a study of convicted child molesters in Ontario Canada,77% of those who molested boys and 87% of those who molested girls said they were regular users of hard-core pornography.

If God didn't want us to watch porn, we would have all been born blind. I have been looking at porn and girly magazines since I was about 12 yo. and I'm now close to 70 yo. I have never committed a crime, sexual or otherwise, and I don't plan on starting. I have never seen child porn and I don't want to. It is my understanding that child porn is damaging to the children that are exploited, by being raped and filmed against their will.

Adult porn between consenting people of legal age and sound mind, is labeled by some fanatics as sinful. Sin is a man made word that means that a man or woman has insulted or otherwise committed a thought crime against a supernatural being, whose existence has never been verified.

All the good that happens in the world is caused by the silence of the people who don't pray. All the people that do pray overload any conduits that may be there, with babble from different people from different cultures praying in contradiction to the prayers of others, to such a degree that the giant ear in the sky cannot sort it all out and then decide which ones of the sinners who have submitted petitions asking that the laws of the unchanging God, be changed for the benefit of the sinner who is in effect, giving God advice about how to handle situations. I guess they think God doesn't know what should be done until they (the sinners) enlighten him. They call it supplications and others call it whining.

Sure, porn can easily be painted as harmless and a mere tool to aid self pleasure for both sexes. It can be even be considered as an entertainment source that does not necessary cause unhealthy thinking. There is always the positive way of looking at everything, including porn. However, it is also always nice to be someone who watches porn than to be someone who performs it. How are we to know that the actors in porn movies are truly and always willing pornstars? How much do we know about the porn industries to be so sure that porn actors are not forced into the business? And, how certain are we that young women are not being tortured and forced (or even drugged) into submission to feed the porn entertainment industry? When we start to ponder on these questions, perhaps, common sense will tell us whether porn is good for mankind or not.

Porn is a masturbation tool... a harmless activity most of both sexes perform. Only religious whackos are not masturbating.

Religion makes many unable to understand science... believing instead that there is good reason to believe in creationism and a giant flood with both of these having NO EVIDENCE FOR EXISTING... Gladly they will point out that evolution has flaws and the history of the bible is correct - again the do not understand that zero evidence for creationism exists instead of the warehouses full of it for evolution... as for bible history being correct the only evidence they have is a poorly written ancient book of stories or rather fairytales and that the religious cannot understand that the bible has a few historical events with most being hogwash.

They cannot understand that they believe in myths as absurd as Zeus and Thor... If they cannot understand their faith is silly why expect them to understand ANY science?

porn, drugs, cigarettes - all these make the neural networks of the human brain develop such a way that you will need more and more of it and it will never be enough. It starts when the mind is stressed and you want a quick relief that is really not fixing the problem.

Those addicted and who want to give up but cant - you have to fight it. Focus on real fulfillment and get help from your family.

LOOK, I DINT READ THIS ARTICLE. BUT I DONT CARE WHAT IT HAS TO SAY. PORN MIGHT NOT HAVE TOO BAD AN EFFECT ON MANY PEOPLE, BUT TO ATLEAST AROUND 20% OF THE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WHO HAVE ACCESS TO INTERNET, PORN BECOMES HIGHLY ADDICTIVE, INCREASES THE SEX DRIVE (Might not be a good thing if you don't have a GF) AND REDUCES THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF A PERSON.

PORNSTARS ALSO LEAD A SAD LIFE, MOST OF THEM PERFORMING ANAL WITH MULTIPLE MEN. IS THIS WHAT WE SHOULD SUPPORT? I FEEL SO SORRY FOR THEM AND WHAT THEY RESORT TO DOING TO THEIR BODIES.

I find it intersting that those who fear porn, incessantly talk about what it teaches us. Those who like it watch it for entertinment. It teaches us nothing, once we've passed puberty and gained a little experience. Its just entertainment, that the would be censors want to shroud in mystery, and condemn without ever seeing it, in most cases, and aparantly from thier own admission they use it only for education, that most of us have already gotten elsewhere from more acceptable sources, and never seek to be educated by porn. plus they cite Ted Bundy as someon we should, apparantly look up to, and learn from. I ask you, what is more dangerous, consenting adults already educated from reasonable sources, watching porn, or religious zealots educated by porn and by the likes of Ted Bundy seeking to teach and control us. I never hear of porn watchers wanting to control the religious zealots. why do they always want to control others, rather than just live life to its fullest, themselves. Do they fear real life so much and feel so guilty for ever considering masturbation or having sex, that they feel safer just sitting at home alone and sad trying to control everyone else to make others do nothing too and sit at home alone and feel as sad and guilty as they feel? I say to them not an order as that is thier chosen metthod of effecting change, but merely as a positive suggestion, for all those who hate and/o fear porn, wake up throw off your black shrouds of doom, and join the rest of the world, jump on trampolins, swim dance have sex oh, and yes even watch a porn movie just to see what it is youre condemning so vehemently. Honest it wont warp your mind of make you want to do bad things, and trust me on this, It is not for educational purposes. its usually simply a group of mediocre actors having sex and it can be exciting to watch, but will teach you nothing. its just for fun.

Breathing leads to aging, and then you die. 100% of observations prove it. While the mechanism is not yet known, there are many clear correlations between the numbers of people who breathe and those who age. Further studies need to be done to establish the nature of the causal relationship. Sadly, I am addicted to breathing. I can't stop myself, even though I know it's wrong, and that I will die eventually because of it. I blame society, for making air so available.

These studies contain both findings and conclusions. Even if the findings are valid ("increased viewing of porn is statistically correlated with risky sexual activity"), that doesn't mean the conclusions are ("watching the porn CAUSES the risky activity"). Maybe the cause-effect relationship is really the other way around, or maybe both observed effects are caused by some 3rd propensity higher upstream.

In the middleof the jungle in India......is a temple.......dedicated to tantric sex........aside from the world famous kama sutra,,,,,,,and the Japanese pillow books.....'GETTING IT ON" and "GETTING IT OFF".......has been an activity of humans........to get 'TURNED ON BETTER"......

We are all monkeys......lol.....we have not changed at all since the days of the pharohs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Venus of Willendorf, carved about 25,000 years ago, is one of the oldest surviving works of porn, er, art in the world. Shortly after Gutenberg printed the Bible he began putting out erotic engravings. Some of the earliest daguerreotypes were pornographic and almost as soon as humans created moving pictures in the late 19th century cinematographs began offering girlie shows.

As long as people have depicted their world in pictures and words there has been porn.

I have a theory, entirely untested mind you, that men enjoy looking at the female form. Science should check it out.

Oh by the way, experiencing an orgasm is so simple a thing as stroking one or two parts or spots as if they were mechanical connections, per arvay. Porn strips away the humanity of the participants and teaches us to regard others as meat, not as spirits and souls enshrouded in an amazingly complex earth-suit. This research was too narrowly focused to really understand the fuller implications of these behaviors.

America is growing up. Good. Porn is sexual entertainment, and educational for some. Thanks to porn millions of American boys know where to find the little part that gives a woman an orgasm. Religion is the dangerous nonsense that make Americans ignorant and bigoted, and should be discouraged.

You are quoting findings from biased researchers. Dr Claudio Violato (?!) and the University of Calgary have ties to the CATHOLIC University of Health and Public Sciences. Claudio is on the staff sheet there (http://www.bugando.ac.tz/mph/staff_member.html). In other words; he cannot be trusted to inform us on what is right and wrong in the bedroom (or wherever you want to watch porn).

He says across these,there is consistent and reliable evidence that exposure to pornography is related to male sexual aggression against women.This association is strongest for violent pornography and still reliable for non-violent pornography particularly for frequent users. His source is psychologist Neil Malamuth et al 2000.He also says that in experiemental studies adults show significant strengthening of attitudes supportive of sexual aggression following exposure to pornography.He then says the association between pornography and rape supportive attitudes is evident as a result of exposure to both non-violent (showing consenting sexual activity) and violent pornography while the latter results in significantly greater increase in violence-supportive attitudes.He also says exposure to sexually violent material increases male viewers acceptance of rape myths and erodes their empathy for victims of violence. His source for this is Allen et al 1995.He explains adults also show an increase in behavioral aggression following exposure to pornography including non-violent or violent depictions of sexual activity(but not nudity) with stronger effects for violent pornography.Allen et al 1995.He also says in 2009 there was a major compilation of research studies that confirms all of this past research.

Dr.Flood also says that pornography is a poor and indeed dangerous sex educator and that pornography helps to sustain y

oung people's adherence to sexist and unhealthy notions of sex and relationships. He says it maqy exacerbate violence-supportive social norms and encourage their participation in sexual abuse. He also says that children may also be alienated as many adult women are,by the subordinating representations of women common in pornography. Dr.Flood was quoted in an online 2004 article about men becoming feminists that when he was a young guy who used pornography often,and it played a big role in his trying to guilt trip a woman into having sex when she didn't want to. And in an online 2001 article called,Can Men Be Feminists? he talks about the good things that have changed,but then talks about the bad things that haven't changed and some of the things he said that haven't changed are movies that glamorize men's sexual violence against women,and pornography that portrays girls and women only as sex objects for men. One of the things he says for men to do to become feminists,is stop using pornography and also clean the bathroom etc. He also explains there are many studies that show that teen boys who are frequent users of pornography more often sexually harass girls and believe it's perfectly OK to hold a girl down and force her to have sex.

I guess it also depends on what you classify as "porn". There is plenty of amateur erotica out there there merely depicts two people sharing sexual pleasure, vs. the commercial kind that may be more likely to carry things to the extreme. Much of Europe (where porn is more socially acceptable but the problems are apparently fewer) would not consider that "dirty", even if not all of them are married.

@onesoLucky No... it IS.. dirty when there is no love involved and a camera is in a woman like a gynecology examination.

You can't cover sin with flowers and call it beautiful. Porn is Dirty and for Losers. No woman ever feels good when men multiple men are using her like a Rag doll for a few buck...Every day...For years...Losers

@RichardSRussell Obviously the people who use these studies to promote their religious or political agenda are counting on people having less critical thinking ability than you do. I find that most of the foaming at the mouth puritans are either easily lead or emotionally damaged by some tragedy and aren't capable of much beyond their own issues.

Freedom, which is the foundation for our great nation of America means, I'll live my life with my body my way. We don't need people like you wanting to take our freedom away with their self serving jibberish.

The United States of America was founded on the principal of; freedom of religion and FREEDOM FROM RELIGION. Please put that in your pipe and smoke it......and please keep your two cents out of our business.

What you talked about freedom is absolutely correct! That's why he has a right to say what he wants and express his opinion.

Also a 21 year old girl might not know what a normal life is and might find it easy to get money by working in the porn industry and ruin her life later on. There are documentaries made where pornstars talk about how they have lost their intimacy in their personal life and cant live a normal life.

We have to stop this industry. Follow suite with iceland that is completely trying to ban porn.

@thewholetruth@arvay@SethBullockA lot of the women who have participated in porn films have enjoyed it and had a good experience. Mainstream, legal porn has high standards to prevent disease and gives all parties plenty of freedom. Not all do, but not all people have good experiences in any job. Think about the high suicide rates of doctors and soldiers.

@arvay@SethBullock When it is your daughter or Sister being pounding by multiple men every night for years I hope you feel the same way. Porn is for Losers, you are watching suicidal girls without parents, most are coming for foster homes..do you still feel like oiling yourself up now?